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Report: Cleary to sign with PHI, 3 yrs, $2.75m/yr, NTC

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Haven't most of these same arguments been used against Franzen, Filppula and others? If Franzen's goal stats are given, it's well, he scores in bunches, or they're not "quality" goals or important goals or he should've scored more if he played harder. Franzen has had an extensive injury history and it's likely that he's played through injuries as well, but he's considered lazy. He would have been ripped to shreds if he had the defensive lapses that Cleary did.

I don't think it's beyond the realm of possibility that Babcock may have overlooked Cleary's shortcomings for whatever personal reasons. It's not unlike the Brandon Inge situation with the Tigers. He was a decent player, but when he had clearly lost his ability to be an everyday player, he was still penciled into the lineup daily. I think had Cleary played on a 3rd or 4th line and was scratched when he was underperforming like other players were, it would have lessened the dissatisfaction with Cleary.

The lionshare of the criticisms of Mule come back to one point: his lack of consistent effort from shift to shift and game to game. It's been pretty clearly stated in every thread where his name comes up. And Flip avoided most criticism due to his consistent effort. People just wished he'd scored more.

So your argument as to why Babcock played Cleary in clutch situations in spite of all his obvious flaws is:

1) personal reasons

2) baseball?

I think I'm done here.

Cleary did everything that was asked of him. People should be angry with Babcock and Holland, not Cleary.

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My gut says Cleary will be a Wing by December at the latest.

Holland is too nice and loyal, and - whether you like Cleary or not, or whatever - Cleary is his big reclamation project success story.

It feels so weird reading "Well, we tried to meet in the middle, but we had to move on. Thxbai" comments from Holland re: Cleary.

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The lionshare of the criticisms of Mule come back to one point: his lack of consistent effort from shift to shift and game to game. It's been pretty clearly stated in every thread where his name comes up. And Flip avoided most criticism due to his consistent effort. People just wished he'd scored more.

So your argument as to why Babcock played Cleary in clutch situations in spite of all his obvious flaws is:

1) personal reasons

2) baseball?

I think I'm done here.

Cleary did everything that was asked of him. People should be angry with Babcock and Holland, not Cleary.

Right, it's Babcock's fault that Cleary was slow, played poor defensively and lost pucks along the boards. I guess fans should also be mad at Holland and Babcock because of the way Franzen plays too. So a guy signs with another team, the GM bids his farewells, thanks for all you did, then suddenly the deal with Philly is off and the coach is involved in a meeting with him. But Babcock's personal bias has absolutely nothing to do with it.

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This is so frustrating. I was so happy when he was "signed" with Philly and out of the Wings org. It already looks like Tatar was the odd man out according to the early line combos for camp. Why is it that every time Holland gets me to have faith again, he goes and does something like this...

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Right, it's Babcock's fault that Cleary was slow, played poor defensively and lost pucks along the boards. I guess fans should also be mad at Holland and Babcock because of the way Franzen plays too. So a guy signs with another team, the GM bids his farewells, thanks for all you did, then suddenly the deal with Philly is off and the coach is involved in a meeting with him. But Babcock's personal bias has absolutely nothing to do with it.

Who exactly do you think decides ice time on the team? You think Cleary hops over the boards on his own? If he was as bad as you make him sound he'd be watching from the press box.

Instead he's getting big minutes because he's a dependable utility guy and Babcock had few options. That's where Kenny "NTC" Holland deserves some blame. The Wings have needed a top 6 guy for a while and Holland's solution was Bert and Sammy.

But nah, you're right. I'm sure it's some personal bias with Babcock and not about trying to give the team the best chance at winning. He seems like a pretty soft guy who's overly sentimental with players.

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Frank Serevalli, for the Philadelphia Daily News, is tweeting that Cleary will be at Wells Fargo Center tomorrow morning for the Flyers training camp.

http://twitter.com/DNFlyers/status/377939913951297536

Flyers say Dan Cleary is in a group skating at 8:30am tomorrow at Wells Fargo. I guess we'll see then.

http://twitter.com/DNFlyers/status/377941067535880193

He was supposed to report today and didn't show, went to DET to meet with Wings. Flyers still expect him.

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This is bizarre.

If they do end up losing Tatar over this, my mind is going to be blown, but I don't even know if I'll have the emotional energy to get angry. s*** like this is just not surprising anymore, and that's sad. I've defended and criticized Cleary in the past and in this thread, and while I think he still has value at the right price, I think it'd be nuts to end up losing someone like Tatar so you can get Cleary in his last few years when he's already been on a serious decline. He had a great playoffs, but he's had terrible playoffs in the past too. Again, somewhere in the $1-2 million range is what Cleary should get if he signs with the Wings, and it should only be if it means not losing or further alienating some of your top prospects.

In any event, again, this is just a bizarre situation at this point.

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I analyzed his production in the playoffs today. He had one legitimate goal (with a stick and against a goalie), the others being either empty netters (1) or deflections off his body (2); and he had one primary assist (a pass to Smith at the blue line), with the remainder being pedestrian passes to other players who ended up doing the actual set-up work. His numbers are very inflated.

In the meantime, he was making bad defensive plays and turning the puck over regularly. The latter became a commonality during the regular season; Cleary required extra time to bend over and pass it a puck, and even more than that to lift it into the air, and opposing players with no such restrictions in quickness (meaning nearly all of them) would generally catch up to him before he managed to get either of those things done. This was especially troublesome along the boards, because the opposition would simply hold him there and yank the puck away from him.

I guess all of that is irrelevant to me. If Cleary had not produced points, people would have piled on him even more. Especially since Cleary was receiving a lot of ice time. Cleary gets "ugly" goals/points because he puts himself into position to do so. Maybe if Franzen and Filppula would have done the same, they could have gotten themselves some more "illegitimate" points.

I think discrediting a player's production is rather silly. Players get deflections off their body when they go to the front of the net, not float around the perimeter like Franzen and Filppula did. Hockey is a weird game of bounces and you clearly were just focusing on the negatives in your analysis of Cleary to further diminish his value to the team.

I could analyze Franzen and Filppula's play and come up with a whole lot of invisibility. I will stand by my original point that Cleary was useful in the playoffs. You attempted to do the same thing for Brunner when he didn't get re-signed.

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Why didn't Datsyuk, Franzen or Filppula score those dirty goals and cheap points that Cleary was putting up? Guy went to the scoring areas and was rewarded, while those guys were prancing around.

Maybe we could have beaten Chicago if they played as hard as Cleary.

Edited by GMRwings1983

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